Tigers win home opener

With her team on the ropes, Missouri senior Jessica Vander Kooi delivered a knock out punch.

The Arkansas-Little Rock Trojans had closed the Tiger volleyball team’s lead in game 1 of Tuesday’s Missouri home opener to 29-28 and had just forced Tiger coach Wayne Kreklow to call a timeout when Vander Kooi, the outside hitter, put the game away with her seventh kill. But No. 13 Missouri (3-1) fought off a pesky UALR squad (2-3) for a 3-0 win, 30-28, 30-21, 30-22, in front of 1855 fans at Hearnes Center. The crowd was the largest ever to attend a non-conference game at Missouri.

Vander Kooi finished the match with 20 kills, 19 digs, and two aces. Kreklow was pleased with his senior leader’s performance.

“She’s doing a really good job of taking over,” he said. “She’s become our security blanket.”

Kreklow said that whenever Missouri got into trouble, setter Lei Wang knew to get Vander Kooi the ball.

Vander Kooi said the Tigers had trouble “fighting the first-game jitters.” Missouri was unable to grab hold of game 1. Missouri had runs of 7-0 and 5-0, but UALR had a 4-0 run and two 3-0 runs of their own in the back-and-forth game.

Missouri went on an early 5-0 run in game 2 behind the serving of Vander Kooi to grab an 8-3 cushion and never let UALR get any closer. The Tigers used runs of 5-0 and 4-0 to overcome an early 6-2 deficit in game 3.

Kreklow said the team did not perform quite as well as it had in its previous game against Villanova on Saturday and it was working to find team chemistry.

“It’s going to be a process to get to the comfort level we need to be at,” he said. “We’re searching for the right offensive combinations.” Senior middle blocker Nicole Wilson said that the Tigers were “a little caught off guard” by the Trojans’ play.

Kreklow compared facing UALR to facing a knuckleball pitcher in baseball, saying the Trojans’ didn’t take many chances but also didn’t make any errors.

“They did a nice job of getting us out of our rhythm,” he said.

Wilson had 11 kills and three aces and true freshman Julianna Klein added seven kills. Libero Tatum Ailes pitched in 23 digs for the Tigers.

Ivanka Davidova led UALR’s attack with 10 kills.

Missouri now hits the road for six straight games, including three straight versus ranked teams, beginning Friday in South Bend, Ind. where they take on Idaho at the Shamrock Invitational.

Kreklow said that although he feels his team has no glaring weaknesses, the Tigers will have to improve on the little things to have a successful road trip.

“There are a ton of little things that we can do a lot better than what we are doing right now,” he said.